


The Bomb, It Ticks Through the Night

by cosmotronic



Category: Ghostbusters (2016)
Genre: Established Relationship, F/F, Fluff, Romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-03-09
Updated: 2017-03-09
Packaged: 2018-10-01 15:40:26
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,460
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10193210
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cosmotronic/pseuds/cosmotronic
Summary: When their sometimes become always.





	

**Author's Note:**

> Look, see, um, I was trying to write smut but then I got kidnapped by the fluff monster and it wouldn't let me go until I finished this so here you go. Sweet motherfucking wispy fluff.

 

Sometimes Erin will lie in bed in her apartment, and it's their apartment now, more than not. Holtz gave up her tiny shoebox and ended up living at the firehouse – more room, more practical, probably illegal – soon after they saved the city and the Ghostbusters got everything they could possibly want or need.

But the others have rules and there's really no privacy at the firehouse and they both kind of want this thing between them to have some normality to it, to be just for them and not about the Ghostbusters. So once the thing they have becomes a _thing_ Holtz starts going home with Erin instead and although it's not a gradual shift neither of them can really remember when it began.

Erin likes Holtz's possessions mixed in with her own, it makes her place less sterile, less Erin. Holtz doesn't really own much apart from a closet stuffed to overflowing with clothes. A few boxes of tools and scrap and the sad corpses of household electrical items. Some horrible cheap plastic figurines that Erin abhors but now she can't imagine her shelves without their garish colours and oddly precise placement.

Erin loves Holtz's chaos spread through her grey order. She thinks there's a metaphor for themselves in there, but she doesn't want to tug on that thread too hard, just in case a spiteful universe calls her bluff and takes her chaos away.

So Erin will lie in bed and Holtz will be there, more often than not.

Sometimes Erin will lie in bed and think on the changes in her life, the differences between a grey then and a kaleidoscope now, the differences between what she thought she wanted and what she has.

It is different and not just the wonderful, stars colliding and being reborn and the infinite possibilities of happiness kind of different that comes with being totally, completely, truthfully in love for the very first time.

Erin will think on the incidental little differences too, like having to tilt her head down a bit for a kiss. Like their hands meeting at a perfect, comfortable midpoint when they walk down the street and Holtz's fingers twitch into hers.

Like Holtz swinging their joined hands and grinning and cackling madly or running down the street, arms and legs akimbo, tugging Erin behind her. It's ridiculous but Erin will laugh, pure and bright, and that's different, too.

Little differences, like not having enough space in the bathroom for all their hair products and lotions and makeup. Like having to dance around one another for their morning ablutions, knocking elbows at the sink.

Like pulling a face when she finds stubble that is most definitely not hers stuck to her razor and Holtz making it up to her later by lying smooth and naked on the bed. Like Holtz revealing her ulterior motive when she spreads her silky legs and Erin crumpling between them because she's bare _everywhere_.

Tiny differences, like the gentleness of a touch on her skin, a hand on her cheek. Lips that are soft, her own parting before the flick of a tongue at the corner of her mouth. A thumb brushing across her nipple and shooting fire down to her core. Slim hips rocking down on hers or a clever caress between her legs.

Intimate differences like being able to give and give and give without being left lost and empty. Like having a body bend under hers, and to bend under another so easily without feeling used.

They make love, and Erin will always call it that. They _fuck_ and they _bang_ and they _take_ each other and they do whatever Holtz's latest wicked euphemism is, but they always _make love_ and Erin knows Holtz gets it too, understands that this thing is different and worthy.

And they make love a lot. Holtz isn't constantly worked up, but her motor will always run a little hotter than Erin's. Holtz is considerate when she needs to be, but enthusiastic and inventive and Erin's never had so much fun on the way to blissful insanity, so often and so spontaneously. It is a playful meeting of body and mind, teasing touches and breathless smiles.

They do it _everywhere_ at first and Erin discovers the thrill of nearly being caught for the first time, the almost-shame of being late far too often because they can't keep their hands off each other. The naked ease that comes naturally with knowing someone intimately, through and through, and the escalation that comes with time and trust.

Sometimes Holtz will press her down and press into her and Erin will shudder and moan deep and long as Holtz takes the lead. She will melt and fold and solidify stronger, mastercrafted in a furnace.

Sometimes Holtz will look at her and need and beg and sometimes she will _submit_ and Erin will give her what she craves in a firm touch and a snap of teeth. Erin will glory in the body soft and willing and falling apart under her own hands, relish the sharp tang of desire on her tongue.

Sometimes it'll be fast and quick and dirty and rough and it'll hurt because there's no way two people should be able to trust enough to let go like that, but they do it anyway.

Sometimes it will be a slow crescendo, an impossibly perfect dance where they will climb high peaks together and fly together and count the stars behind their eyes together and sometimes they will cry together because there’s no way that sort of symmetry should exist in nature.

Sometimes Erin will lie in bed and think on her luck.

She's not one to believe in soulmates or greeting card sentiment but she will be damned if this thing with Holtz isn't the closest thing to that, the closest thing that is real and quantifiable and provable.

She will hold Holtz's smaller body close to her own and marvel at the warmth and security it affords, how the form fits so well to hers. Holtz's back pressed tight to her chest, head tucked under Erin's chin. One of Erin's arms wrapped loosely about her waist, hand coming to rest snug against skin.

Erin will drop her head a little to breathe her lover in and know she is real, because dreams and fantasies don't smell like that. Holtz smells like shampoo and solder and sweet sugar and sharp salt, sometimes, and earth and ash and the ozone that comes from a successful bust.

Erin will twist Holtz's long hair through her fingers and play with the curls and enjoy the texture, so thick and soft and a little dry at the ends. It's blonde again now and Erin will always smile at the memory of Holtz dying her hair in solidarity for the Garfield fiasco. Of course, Holtz took it to the extreme – parading a different ludicrous colour every two weeks for three months – as part of her exasperating, endearing courtship dance.

A one-sided courtship that started with a joke and a pick-up line and a smouldering once-over and didn't let up for months.

She'd assumed it was just what Holtz did, a funnel for her energy, and Erin surprised herself by wishing it was otherwise. Wishing that Holtz's flirty remarks and hip thrusts and sly winks were just for her, that Holtz's thoughtful little gestures a special secret just for them. By the time Erin even realised that her wishes were all coming true she'd borne the full brunt of Holtz's singular adoration and in return she had fallen stupidly, madly in love with the engineer.

Erin sees it clear as yesterday; a Tuesday afternoon, rain outside and slow work inside and she'd been staring at her half-empty _Cutie π_ mug – a just-because gift from Holtz – for the better part of twenty minutes before rising from her desk.

She'd invaded Holtz's space like Holtz had done to her so purposefully and so often, and placed a sure hand on her arm. And Holtz had looked up, looked straight into Erin's eyes all wide and clear-sighted and whispered _oh_ and Erin had nodded _yeah_.

Sometimes Erin will lie in bed and wonder how she could have been so blind and so uncertain for so long; she knows the others picked it up before she did and made a joke of it, made a bet on it. Perhaps she was not wholly oblivious to Holtz's advances, just wholly unbelieving.

Wholly unworthy, a small voice will say. Though that insecurity is swept away every time Holtz looks at Erin as though she is the greatest thing in all creation. Every time Holtz touches her like she is precious polonium, elusive astatine, noble radon; rare and to be treated with respect. _Handle with care_ but not _fragile_ , because Holtz has seen the strength of Erin’s soul.

Holtz sees a lot, but Holtz doesn't always have the words to explain, because Holtz is odd.

Holtz is a fission reaction in a fishbowl. Normality curved and distorted and deceptively deep. Energy all at once excitable and unstable and vigorous. Her elements stripped as soon as they form and her weight is not enough to stop them flying apart so she directs the remnants into speech and motion as best she can.

Her intense productivity keeps her active, perpetual, a rare criticality in nature. Her methods are always perplexing and usually painful to look upon with a normal eye, and everything she does is a mess of potential energy, an _event_ waiting to happen.

And sometimes she just _melts down_ , explodes.

Holtz lives oddly and loves oddly but Holtz won't ever change, because she can't. Holtz won't ever try to change, because Erin begs her not to.

Because Erin's soul is her gravity, her core of strength built solid from years of pain and she knows she can collect those charged remnants in her own orbit, wants to steer them true and she does, and together they are powerful.

It's why they work so well together as Ghostbusters, will of idea and force of creation, and why they fit so well together as lovers, order and chaos, opposites in check.

And those few times when Erin cannot, when she cracks and snaps before the buffeting force of Holtz's energy, Holtz will apologise for the hurt and hold all of her pieces until she is ready.

Erin causes some bruises of her own, too. She still feels the heaviness suck her down and crush her sometimes, still has quiet days and pointless days and days where nothing will ever quite stop the inexplicable roil of bitter in her gut. Days where Erin will hurl her order and their chaos away, sometimes desperately, and pull everything that she is into a tiny dark place where Holtz's odd love is not enough.

Holtz will always try so hard. Holtz learns, and adapts, and will try something new each time, a kind of helpless desperation.

Sometimes Holtz will fill her empty spaces with light and colour and sound and soul, expand her brilliant aura to encompass Erin and banish the dark. Sometimes Holtz will bring her things, comfort food or healthy food or fun little gifts or wonderful little creations she has made herself. Sometimes Holtz will kiss her and murmur _why so sad_ and _let me in_ , nonsense in Erin's ear.

In the end Holtz will still, almost vibrating as she holds herself steady for Erin, and wait.

And afterwards Holtz will ask how she can be better and Erin's heart will ache and break and she will shake her head _you can't, you're perfect_ and she will apologise for the hurt and give all of her pieces to Holtz.

It won't ever be perfect, they know, but they won't ever need it to be. They compromise and that's not a dirty word. They learn to live beside and on top of and intertwined with each other, for days and weeks and months and years.

Erin will lie in bed, Holtz in her arms and it becomes a ritual.

Holtz as still as she can in Erin's embrace – far stiller than anyone else would have thought possible – but not asleep. Hands clasping something; fingers busy with a tool or a toy or something with texture. Face downturned, eyes on her distraction even when the light is dim, her lips pouting or worried by teeth.

An observer would interpret the scene as awkward; a desperate clinch and a reluctant, childish participant. An observer would not understand how two hearts can beat in syncopation and still create harmony.

Holtz will never say anything, will never pull away. Erin knows Holtz would suffer for her, restrain herself and burn in fire for her even as her nerves scream. Erin knows and it saddens her even as the contact uplifts her because she doesn't want Holtz to suffer, ever – even through a tiny thing like staying still for too long – but it means so much that Holtz will try because she loves that warm body in her arms, skin so close to hers, quiet and intimate.

But Erin loves Holtz more, so she will take note of the tiny sighs and subtle motions after a few minutes and press a soft kiss to Holtz's head, her ear, her cheek, whichever spot is easiest to reach. Murmur _thank you_ and _love you_ and open her arms so Holtz can float away.

They will always separate after a time and settle a little ways apart. Erin curled up on her side, wrapped up tight in the blankets, warm and snug as a bug in a rug, as Holtz would say. Holtz splayed out on her back, legs sticking naked from the sheets into the cool night air, messy and shifting, but they will hold one hand together between them. An anchor until they fall asleep; Holtz first, fast and deep, then Erin, drifting, sinking beneath the surface.

Erin will dream of love and life and forever and friendship and breakfast cereal and winning some award and, sometimes, utter terror when the phantom at the foot of their bed has a face she recognises. She will slide awake slowly and breathe through it, like she has all her life.

And Holtz will dream too, dream dreams of _regular elephant_ and _pink, please_ and _mmm s’hot_ and, sometimes, of _nononono takeme takeme not her godno not her_ and Erin says not a word as Holtz shudders awake and flings her sweating, trembling form into Erin's arms again. Face in her chest this time to bury a single, wrenching sob and Erin will refuse to open her arms again until morning.

When sunshine finally falls upon them Holtz will bounce from the bed and stumble through the day. The others don't notice, but Erin sees the stutter in the way she ambles frequently over to Erin's desk _just to check_ and the way she hovers protectively at Erin’s shoulder during a bust. She stays a little longer in Erin's arms that night, too.

Sometimes Erin will wake in the night for no reason, snuggle further into the blankets, squeeze or recapture Holtz’s hand and be asleep again within minutes.

Sometimes Erin will wake in the night to find Holtz gone, but Erin won’t ever worry. Holtz doesn't adhere to a regular circadian rhythm, or if she does it is a complex, shifting beat in irrational time.

Sometimes their apartment will be silent when Erin wakes, sometimes a small hum of music drifts from the next room, beats gentle and volume turned low. A warm, enveloping sound not enough to disturb Erin, just enough to show that Holtz is there.

Holtz is not loud but surrounds herself in noise and chaos, sensory stimulation like a drug. Overdoses on it. Confides to Erin that she needs to surf that heliosphere, the thin line of blue between just enough and too much because the alternative is terrifying.

For Holtz the silence is crushing, deafening, and Erin can relate. Holtz has to wrap herself in sound and colour and texture and motion and Erin can relate.

Erin can relate because she has to sleep with the light on; for Erin the blackness is crushing, blinding. She will always remember how nervous she had been when Holtz had inevitably found out – their first, innocent sleepover – but her girlfriend had merely shrugged and flicked the bedside lamp back on and patted the space next to her.

Now the fairy lights Holtz has hung about their bedroom twinkle in a gentle repeating pattern, with just enough glow to keep her sane, a hypnotic lullaby in perfect order, and Erin will wonder why she never thought of them before.

Sometimes Erin will rise from their bed in the night, the play of coloured light shifting across her body. Shuffle room to room wrapped in her blankets and find Holtz perched at the kitchen counter, or sat cross-legged on the living room floor.

She will see Holtz scribbling frantically on sheets of scrap paper, newspaper, torn-open cereal boxes, scrawling calculations on the backs of envelopes, drawing plans all over Erin's meticulous notebooks.

Or she will see Holtz tinkering meticulously with half-developed prototypes, fiddling with electronics, deconstructing and reconstructing elements of their non-nuclear work gear, their gadgets, their kitchen appliances.

Or she will see Holtz tapping her tools, twisting them between her fingers and bopping along to the quiet music. Lip-synching with a screwdriver, dancing for an audience of none.

Sometimes Erin will sit and watch Holtz work and play and work some more until the engineer straightens abruptly and cracks her neck, wincingly loud, and grins a dazzling grin. Deposits herself in Erin's lap, arms and legs draped everywhere, wriggling and excitable and babbling about her latest idea.

Sometimes Erin will sit and watch Holtz work until the dawn paints pink and orange over the scene, wait for Holtz to raise her head slowly, blink tiredly at Erin and slide slowly into a hug and a kiss and a _good morning, sunshine_.

Sometimes Erin will bend down and kiss the top of her girlfriend's head or her cheek, take her hand and lead her back to bed. Holtz will come willingly, silently, and they will both fall back asleep.

Sometimes the kiss will become more and they make love in the middle of the night or the small hours of the morning, back in bed or on the floor of the living room or up against the refrigerator.

Sometimes Erin will yawn and return to bed alone. Holtz will be there next to her when she wakes again; fast asleep or half-awake and gazing at her dumbly or, even better, wide awake and presenting her with a steaming cup of coffee and a _wakey-wakey, hot stuff_.

Sometimes Holtz will wake Erin at morning's first glow by nuzzling playfully into her neck or kissing her, seriously and with intent. Breath minty fresh, because Holtz is meticulous about oral hygiene. A wise caution given her predilection for snacks and sugary treats.

There are sometimes and so many times and endless possibilities in the things they do, endless variations on a theme, a repeated theme playing softly over them, binding them, entwining them.

And they show it is forever in the things they do and they know it is forever in the little gaps between the things they do.

And then sometimes, with the things they do, _sometimes_ becomes _always_.

One time Erin will wake in the early hours and go to Holtz.

Holtz will be sat in the middle of the floor, surrounded by the dismantled remains of their toaster. The twist of a heating element in her hand, brought close to her nose in order to study it more closely. Goggles obscuring her face, hair in wild disarray from an earlier bout of carnality, wearing the tiny cut-off t-shirt and patterned boxers she went to bed in. The creamy skin of her arms and legs ghost pale where the light of the breaking dawn doesn't reach, glowing warm and alive where it does.

Erin will think Holtz has never looked so beautiful, rumpled and odd and surrounded by the things that she loves.

And Erin will be mildly annoyed that there will be no toast that morning, but she will smile and slowly drop to both knees in front of Holtz, mindful not to kneel on any tools or sharp pieces of clutter.

Erin will carefully, slowly, purposefully lift Holtz's goggles from her eyes to rest in her curls. Holtz will lower the heart of their toaster and tilt her head, searching Erin's serene face for an answer, or perhaps a question.

Holtz will whisper.

 _Oh_.

And Erin will whisper.

 _Marry me_.

 

**Author's Note:**

> Except, you know, weird because I can't write normal couple stuff.
> 
> I love lazy morning type fics and while this isn't quite that, it's as close as I'll probably ever come with these two.


End file.
